Girolamo Savonarola by the Same Author
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GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA BY THE SAME AUTHOR LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT WATEl!.LOO GIROLAMO SA VON ARO LA BY E. L. S. HORSBURGH, B.A. WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS FOURTH EDITION REVISED AND CONSIDERABLY ENLAROBD METIIUEN & C~-'-TD. 36 E~ElX STRE~ W.C. First Published (Fcap. &,o) May I90I Second Editwn {Fcap. 8vo) August I90.J Tkird Edition (Fcap, 8vo) - Marek I9Q8 Fourlk Edition (Crown 8vo, considerably enlargetl) November r9rr PREFACE NOTHERreissue being required of the little A work on Savonarola, which I wrote many years ago, it has been thought desirable to make the new issue a new version. The present volume may• be regarded as a sequel to the Life of Lorenzo dei Medici, which I published in 1909. It is the result of a renewed and far closer study of the documentary evidence on which our knowledge of Savonarola depends. The incorporation of new material into the old structure proved a matter of so much difficulty that I have found it necessary practically to re-write the original book. But my general view of the man and of his work remains unchanged, or nearly so, by my more recent investigations. I am, however, more than ever convinced that Savonarola, in the matter of his prophecies, is to be regarded rather as a poet than as, in the vulgar sense, a prophet. He is 1roi-rrr11~, the weaver of Divine fantasies, the dreamer of unsubstantial dreams, the Seer of visions hidden from the common eye. It was the misplaced enthusiasm of un- v vi GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA imaginative devotees which insisted upon clothing unsubstantial visions with material significance. It is ever the fault of the material world that it can see no value in what it calls illusions. Hence the tragedy of poets-and of Savonarola. It is ever the conviction of the spiritual world that what men call illusions are in truth the only realities. Hence the immortality of poets-and of Savonarola. E. L. S. H. TO MY WIFE AT ONCE ILLUSION AND REALITY " A creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food • , And yet a spirit still " vii CONTENTS CIIAPTER PA.GB I. INTRODUCTORY: STATE OF ITALY, 1450-1500 I IJ. EARLY YEARS 27 Ill. SAVONAROLA, SAN MARCO, AND LORENZO DE' MEDICI 43 IV. PROPHET AND REFORMER 80 V. 1494-To 30 NOVEMBER. THE INVASION OF CHARLES VIII 106 VI. SAVONAR0LA AND THE FLORENTINE THEOCRACY • 125 VII. SAVONAROLA AND CHARLES Vlll-1495 151 VIII. PROPHET AND PoPE 160 IX. THE EXCOMMUNICATION 195 X. THE CLIMAX • 214 XI. THE ORDEAL AND ARREST 252 XII. THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION • 1168 XIII. SAVONAROLA AND THE RENAISSANCE 282 INDEX 297 b ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SAV0NAROLA, PROFILE (STATUE BY PAZZI IN THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE) Frontispiece SAVONAROLA (STATUE BY PAZZI IN THE PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE) • Second Frontispiece TO FACE PAO£ GIOVANNI Pico DELLA MIRANDOLA (IN THE UFFIZI, FLORENCE. PAINTER UNKNOWN) 26 FERRARA • 30 SAVONAROLA, BY FRA BARTOLOMMEO {IN THE MUSEUM OF S. MARCO, FLORENCE) 38 THE NATIVITY, BY FRA ANGELICO (IN S, MARCO, FLORENCE) 40 GROUP WITH LORENZO DE' MEDICI, FROM THE FRESCO " HoNORIUS Ill GRANTS THE CHARTER OF S, FRANCIS," BY D. GHIR• LANDAIO, IN THE CHURCH OF S, TRINITA, FLORENCE 64 LORENZO DE' MEDICI, BY GEORGIO VASARI 78 CHARLES VIII OF FRANCE (IN THE UFFIZI, FLORENCE, PAINTER UNKNOWN) , u8 PIAZZA DELLA SIGNORIA, PALAZZO VECCHIO, AND LOGGIA OEI LANZI, FLORENCE, PRESENT TIME • 138 CONVENT OF S. MARCO, FLORENCE, THE PIAZZA AND THE CHURCH 228 INDUCTION OF S. ANTONINUS AS ARCHBISHOP OF FLORENCE, BY jOCETTI, SAVONAROLA STANDING ON THE RIGHT 238 SAVONAROLA AS S. PETER MARTYR (IN THE ANCIENT AND MODERN GALLERY, FLORENCE) 262 xi xii GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA TO FACE PAGlt THE PIAZZA DELLA SIONORIA1 SHOWING THE EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA, (PAINTER UNKNOWN, SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 380 MARSILIO FICINO (IN THE DuoMo, FLORENCE) THE ANNUNCIATION, BY FRA ANGELICO (IN S, MARCO, FLORENCE) 29() Reproduced from photographs by Alinari. GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY STATE OF ITALY, r450-r500 HE life of Girolamo Savonarola was contained with T in the last fifty years of the fifteenth century (1452-98). That is to say, he was exactly contem porary with a most brilliant, diversified and momentous epoch in the history of the world. He was himself very much the product of the influences which surrounded him, though in some respects he represented antagonism to them, and reaction against them. From whatever point of view he is to be regarded, it is essential first of all to understand something of the age in which he iived. A rapid glance at the conditions wnich governed his times will serve in some measure to illustrate his character, to throw light upon his aims, and to explain both the na ture of the influence which he exercised and the causes of its decline. That period of fifty years within which Savonarola lived and worked, may be looked upon as the full summer of the times which are known as the Italian Renais sance. This new birth of the western world which had its origin in Italy, its influence radiating therefrom to the surrounding countries of Europe, was not really a I 2 GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA new birth. It was rather the culmination of a slow and gradual process which can be traced through the Dark and Middle Ages. It was the ultimate triumph of the laws of evolution and development in much the same way as the butterfly is the climax of those tedious and laborious stages through which the butterfly must pass before it can greet the sun. The Renaissance has given to the world much which is new-new standards of life, new ideals, new forms of art, new intellectual aspira tions-but it must not be forgotten that the Renais sance also drew its own inspiration from the past and maintained its affinities with the past throughout. The genius of Dante was nurtured on mediaevalism, but the genius of Michelangelo was stimulated by Dante. Even so the mysticism and asceticism of the Middle Ages combine with the energy, restlessness and classic en thusiasm of the Renaissance to form a Savonarola. That which seems most essentially a new birth in re lation to the Renaissance epoch is the revival of classical learning, with which, however, it is often too exclusively associated. But even here the laws of development apply though in a less degree. Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the early pioneers of classical culture rediscovered for the world many of the masterpieces of the ancient Greek and Latin writers, but the great scholars of the Middle Ages were not ignorant of Latin, while the influence of Aristotle underlay and coloured the laborious fabric of scholastic philosophy. Viewed therefore in its relation to the past, the Renais sance may be looked upon as the period of results-a great and glowing period when the e·ffects of long cen turies of time were as if rendered visible in definite forms and shapes of grace and beauty ; and it is little wonder if men failed, amid all these new phenomena, to recognize STATE OF ITALY, 1450-1500 3 their connexion with previous conditions ; little wonder if they looked with contempt and aversion upon the dull centuries which separated them from the light and beauty and power of Plato, Cicero, Virgil, if they imagined that it was only now that the world had begun to live again. When we consider what those results precisely were which the Renaissance exhibited to the eyes of men we find them displayed everywhere-in the domain of thought, of politics, of art, of social life. It was indeed a period of intellectual revival, and from this intellectual impulse all the other movements of the time took their origin and tone. In the Middle Ages, authority, especially ecclesiastical author ity, imprisoned the intellect of man and put fetters upon the free play of the human mind. There were occasional revolts even then, but in spite of the heresies which sprang into life in the Middle Ages, themselves an indication of an independence of thought which refused to be shackled by authority, in spite of an Abelard in whom Renaissance humanism gained a victory over ecclesiasticism, the pre dominating factor in mediaevalism was authority. The predominating factor in the Renaissance was freedom of the mind. The scholars, artists, politicians of that age emancipated themselves from the old standards and con ventions which had governed an earlier day, and the influx of classical learning, which followed rather than produced this outburst of intellectual vigour, did much to stimulate and intensify it, leading to more vigorous intellectual efforts, and to a more pronounced contempt for the immed iate past, which lay under the shadow of darkness, uninflu enced, unilluminated by classical culture or humane ideals. Such a movement, which aimed at the attainment of free play for all the faculties of man, carried within it the hope of the future, but it carried within it also the seeds of much evil. Men found themselves emancipated from old 4 GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA restraints before they had attached themselves securely to new principles of life and conduct. The cult of classical antiquity tended to become an affectation. In Italy it eventually degenerated into little more than slavish imi tation, which left no room for originality, while only very imperfectly did it attain to the true spirit of the classics. In Art the return, or partial return, to Nature, which gives to the compositions of Giotto, notwithstanding his obvious technical limitations, their peculiar charm and appealing force, led in his successors to all sorts of in congruous effects, due to the intermixture of Renaissance feeling with mediaeval designs.